Nahjha Treadwell ’14. Mike Gallo ’10. Napoleon Blamon ’11. All of these former CHS students have their name hanging on a banner as they are members of the very exclusive 1,000-points club. As of February 23, 2016, senior Marisa DiLeo will join this prestigious group

“Getting 1,000 points means a lot to me. I never thought I would be able to accomplish it, but I am happy I did,” DiLeo said after the game against the Willingboro Chimeras.

DiLeo scored her monumental point with 4:13 left in the first quarter of the game. After three sets of free throws, DiLeo sank her 1,000^th point at which point the crowd went wild. The game stopped. DiLeo was then surrounded by her teammates and a few stray fans in the middle of the court. Signs cheering her on flew up immediately. Her father, uncles, and Carmen Saginaro even assembled in a line so that their shirts read the number “1,000.” After being congratulated by her team, Marisa headed to the stands and hugged her grandmother, as well as the rest of her family/fan club .

The cheerleaders even devised a personalized cheer for DiLeo celebrating her thousandth point. Although she may have felt embarrassed, the general consensus agreed that Marisa had worked so hard and really deserved this moment.

Although it was not how any fan would expect her to score her 1,000^th point to happen, DiLeo was just happy she could help the Pirate’s further their lead.

“I was hoping it would be a good game and we would win,” DiLeo said. When asked what was going through her head when taking her free throws, she humbly responded, “I was just hoping I wouldn’t miss them.”

With 19 points her freshman year, 182 her sophomore year and 386 total points scored her junior year, DiLeo entered her senior year with 587 total High School career points. Of course to Marisa, this did not mean that much at first, she was just a girl playing the sport she loved and doing well at it. It was not until the end of her junior year that the possibility of 1,000 points had become apparent to her.

As her father explains by her junior year she was, “averaging about 19 points per game and cause we figured it out [that] she only needed about 15 or 16 points a game to average one thousand,” Lew DiLeo said.

Considering her father already did the math, he knew that his daughter would reach the milestone before her high school basketball career concluded.

“Although I’m very proud that she scored it, I’m not surprised because I knew she had potential to be able to do stuff like that. She comes into high school following a lot of family members who accomplished a lot in high school,” he said. Three of these family members are also members of the 1,000 point club for CHS, however, she is the only female in her family to accomplish the feat.

Those who know DiLeo realize that this isn’t just luck; it’s not simply her being in the right place at the right time. DiLeo has always shown a great prowess on the court, even since her early years in the game.

“We would go and work hard, just different techniques different drills,” her father said of Marisa’s training sessions. “The thing that I like about her as a player is she knows so much about basketball and I give that just to her being around it so much in our family that you tell her how to do something once or twice and she absorbs it, and she doesn’t need much instruction after that.”

Coach Jenkins also acknowledged DiLeo’s hard work and determination to be the best in the league. “On the court, she’s a great leader, our best player,” Jenkins continued. “I think it was really special, something that none of those girls will ever forget. It added a really nice element to the night. Not only did we get to honor those [senior] girls, but we got to celebrate the 1,000^th point as well.”

After discussing DiLeo’s basketball career with multiple people, it became clear that the 1,000^th point was not a goal she set for herself but merely a reflection of the hard work and dedication she has put into the game.